The time my brother hit me over the head with a saw (teeth down!)

(I have to say, this is Norman's grand daughter Kelley typing this as he chats with me and I about fell off my chair laughing when he said, "I'll tell you about the time my brother hit me over the head with a saw! Teeth down!")

Even though we didn't know it, John and Ella were my half-brother and -sister. We didn't know until later in life - I think the inclination came when I was in high school. Donald and I played together a lot - you can say we were almost inseparable. What I had, he had to have it, what I did, he wanted to do. On this day, John and Ella were up in the pasture up the snow ditch. They were playing in the banks digging caves. Donald and I were outside playing, we were drawing on a piece of wood with a rusty carpenters saw. We were drawing a house, and part of the front was too long, so I took the flat side of the saw and started scraping away at it to make it better. Donald didn't like that, so he took the saw and hit me over the head with it - teeth down! He was a mean little fart. I started bleeding, and he ran to the ditch with John and Ella and nestled between then. I went in the house and my mother managed to stop the bleeding. She tied a dish rag over my head and I looked like a 'stara babba' (Croatian or Slovak for 'old lady'). After this, I went out looking for Donald. Not necessarily to kill him, but I sure wanted to find him. I walked up along the old dry crick bed, through the cotton woods, which overhung the trail, where the cows would go up to pasture. I saw John and Ella, and Donald hunkered down like he knew damn well I wanted to shoot him. But they began to laugh at me and calling me 'stara babba'. "Hey, stara babba!"

I might still have that old saw in my shed. This saw didn't have handles and was badly worn and rusty. I'm sure Donald would remember this differently than I do, and he does have a fabulous memory!